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"This day the powder'd curls and golden coat," Says fwelling Crifpin, "begg'd a cobler's vote." "This night, our wit," the pert apprentice cries, "Lies at my feet, I hifs him, and he dies."

The great, 'tis true, can charm th' electing tribe;
The bard may fupplicate, but cannot bribe.
Yet judg'd by thofe, whofe voices ne'er were fold,
He feels no want of ill-perfuading gold;
But confident of praife, if praise be due,
Trufts without fear, to merit, and to you.

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GOOD

Sir WILLIAM.

Jarvis, make no apologies for this honeft bluntness. Fidelity, like yours, is the best excufe for every freedom.

JARVIS.

I can't help being blunt, and being very angry too, when I hear you talk of difinheriting fo good, fo worthy a young gentleman as your nephew, my mafter. All the world loves him.

Sir WILLIAM.

Say rather, that he loves all the world; that is his fault.

JARVIS.

I'm fure there is no part of it more dear to him than you are, though he has not feen you fince he was a child,

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Sir WILLIAM.

What fignifies his affection to me; or how can I be proud of a place in a heart where every fharper and coxcomb find an easy entrance?

JARVIS.

I grant you that he is rather too good-natur'd; that he's too much every man's man; that he laughs this minute with one, and cries the next with another but whofe inftructions may he thank for all this?

:

Sir WILLIAM.

Not mine, fure? My letters to him during my employment in Italy, taught him only that philofophy which might prevent, not defend his errors.

JARVIS.

Faith, begging your honour's pardon, I'm forry they taught him any philosophy at all; it has only ferv'd to spoil him. This fame philofophy is a good horse in the stable, but an arrant jade on a journey. For my own part, whenever I hear him mention the name on't, I'm always fure he's going to play the fool.

Don't let us

I entreat you.

Sir WILLIAM.

afcribe his faults to his philosophy, No, Jarvis, his good nature arifes rather from his fears of offending the importunate, than his defire of making the deferving happy.

JARVIS.

What it rifes from, I don't know. But, to be

fure, every body has it, that afks it.

Sir

Sir WILLIAM.

Ay, or that does not afk it. I have been now for fome time a concealed fpectator of his follies, and find them as boundlefs as his diffipation.

JARVIS.

And yet, faith, he has fome fine name or other for them all. He calls his extravagance, generofity; and his trusting every body, univerfal benevolence. It was but last week he went fecurity for a fellow whofe face he fcarce knew, and that he called an act of exalted mu-mu-munificence; ay, that was the name he gave

it.

Sir WILLIAM.

And upon that I proceed, as my laft effort, though with very little hopes to reclaim him. That very fellow has juft abfconded, and I have taken up the fecurity. Now, my intention is to involve him in fictitious distress, before he has plunged himself into real calamity. To arreft him for that very debt, to clap an officer upon him, and then let him fee which of his friends will come to his relief.

JARVIS.

Well, if I could but any way fee him thoroughly vexed, every groan of his would be mufic to me; yet faith, I believe it impoffible. I have tried to fret him myfelf every morning these three years; but, instead of being angry, he fits as calmly to hear me fcold, as he does to his hair-dreffer.

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Sir WILLIAM.

We must try him once more, however, and I'll go this instant to put my fcheme into execution; and I don't despair of fucceeding, as, by your means, I can have frequent opportunities of being about him, without being known. What a pity it is, Jarvis, that any man's good-will to others should produce fo much neglect of himself, as to require correction? Yet, we must touch his weakneffes with a delicate hand. There are fome faults fo nearly allied to excellence, that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue. [Exit,

JARVIS.

Well, go thy ways, Sir William Honeywood. It is not without reafon that the world allows thee to be the best of men. But here comes his hopeful nephew; the ftrange, good-natur'd, foolish, openhearted-And yet, all his faults are fuch that one loves him ftill the better for them.

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Well, Jarvis, what meflages from my friends this morning?

You have no friends.

JARVIS.

HONEYWOOD.

Well, from my acquaintance then?

JARVIS,

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